Peruse the various battles across a real map of Western Europe in this Google Earth tour

Matrix Games and Panther Games (www.panthergames.com) are thrilled to release a Google Earth tour of the battlefields featured in their highly anticipated wargame, Command Ops: Battles from the Bulge. The tour features battle locations with descriptions, in-game map overlays over the present-day satellite terrain, battle lines with German counterattack objectives, and more!

Getting the Battlefield Tour working is quick and easy:

Download and install Google Earth.

Download the Battlefield Tour. (70MB)

Double click the Battlefield Tour (which is named “BattlesfromtheBulge-BattlefieldTour.kmz”).

Google Earth will automatically open and load the Battlefield Tour. The “Temporary Places” list located at the “Places” pane in the top left of the screen will list all battles, map overlays, battle lines, and other features which can be toggled on and off. Note that selecting to display all of the tour’s features at once may cause Google Earth to respond very slowly.

David Heath, Director of Operations at Matrix Games, said “The level of realism and historical detail found in Battles from the Bulge would please any history buff. The map overlays depicting the terrain layout found in-game vis-à-vis the satellite imagery is nothing short of stunning!”

Assess, Plan, Order and React – The Decisions are Yours!

Acclaimed developer Panther Games brings us to the bitter cold of Western Europe during the Winter of 1944 with Command Ops: Battles from the Bulge. Although the Battle of the Bulge is ground that has been visited by wargamers before, it has never been done with this level of fidelity and historical accuracy. The most advanced and realistic model of command decision-making implemented to date in a commercial wargame, combined with thorough historical research on the battlefields and forces involved in this campaign sets Command Ops: Battles from the Bulge apart from the competition.

Set during the hard fighting of the Battle of the Bulge, Command Ops lets gamers assess, plan, order and react at the operational level just like a real Corps, Division and Brigade commander. Hundreds of hours of gameplay await armchair generals who will be challenged to fight their way across 27 scenarios that stretch from the initial German surprise offensive to the powerful Allied counter-attack.

Command Ops: Battles from the Bulge also sports some of the most advanced and impressive AI ever devised in an operational-level wargame! It is your choice whether to manage every detail of your army, or have the friendly AI manage the war on a lower level while you plan the larger scale maneuvers designed to make short work of your enemy. Just as a historical commander, you can choose where you need to step in and when you need to stand back and let your subordinates do their jobs.

The enemy AI will use its skill to launch well-timed and coordinated strikes as it probes your lines for weakness while realistically reacting to your movements! In addition, for the enthusiastic mod community awaiting Command Ops, powerful tools like MapMaker and ScenMaker allow for the creation of maps and scenarios further adding to already near limitless replayability.

Nice! And very informative tour, love to see the map overlaid on the real world, really shows how much attention you guys have given to the map!

Yep, the maps are a result of a huge effort by several team members over the last 3-4 years. They are digitized directly off of rare 1943 1:50000 GSGS US Army topo's without exception. The maps themselves will be worth the price of the game IMO.

No need to take screenshots, just extract the map images from the kmz file. One way to do this is to change the .kmz extension to .zip and open it by double-clicking. All the images are in the files folder.

< Message edited by The Plodder -- 5/14/2010 9:15:32 PM >

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Gen. Montgomery: "Your men don't salute much." Gen. Freyberg: "Well, if you wave at them they'll usually wave back."